NEESgrid: A Distributed Virtual Laboratory for Advanced Earthquake Experimentation and Simulation

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The George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) is a project funded under the National Science Foundation (NSF) Major Research Equipment appropriation. The goal of NEES is to provide a national, networked simulation resource of geographically-distributed, shared use next-generation experimental research equipment sites, with teleobservation and teleoperation capabilities, which will transform the environment for earthquake engineering research and education through collaborative and integrated experimentation, computation, theory, databases, and model-based simulation to improve the seismic design and performance of U.S. civil and mechanical infrastructure systems. NEES will be constructed through September 30, 2004, and then enter its operational period from October 1, 2004 through September 30, 2014, during which time it will be operated by a NEES Consortium (to be established). This 39-month, $10,000,000 cooperative agreement with The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois, for the project entitled "NEESgrid: A Distributed Virtual Laboratory for Advanced Earthquake Experimentation and Simulation" is the outcome of the peer review of proposals submitted to program solicitation NSF 00-7, "NEES: System Integration." The NEESgrid project will be led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Champaign, Illinois, in partnership with the University of Chicago, Chicago, llinois; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California; and TeraScale, LLC, Cedar Crest, New Mexico. This multi-organizational team will design, develop, implement, test, and make operational the Internet-based, national-scale high performance network system for NEES, called "NEESgrid" in accordance with the NEESgrid Project Execution Plan. NEESgrid will build on proven, existing Grid technology. Its design will integrate existing best practice tools from the commercial and research sectors. NEESgrid will be a layered, modular architecture that is flexible and highly extensible and will enable rapid development of new end-user applications, the introduction of new services, and the integration of new simulation software and experimental facilities as they are developed. NEESgrid will connect, through a high performance Internet network, distributed major earthquake engineering research equipment that includes shake tables, geotechnical centrifuges, a tsunami wave basin, large-scale laboratory experimentation systems, and field experimentation and monitoring installations funded through separate NEES equipment awards made by the NSF NEES program. A dedicated computer system at each experimental facility, called a NEES Point-of-Presence (NEESpop), will enable teleobservation, teleoperation, and network monitoring. Collaborative technologies will enable planning for and teleobservation of experiments as they occur. In addition to providing access for telepresence at the NEES equipment sites, NEESgrid will use cutting-edge tools to link leading edge computational resources and data storage facilities, including a curated repository that will archive experimental and analytical earthquake engineering and related data. NEESgrid also will provide distributed physical and numerical simulation capabilities and resources for visualization of experimental and computed data. NEESgrid support nodes will maintain online knowledge bases that contain tutorials and operate help desks for using NEESgrid. UIUC and its partners will work closely with NEES equipment sites, NEES Consortium Development awardee, NEES Consortium, and the earthquake engineering community to develop the user requirements and performance specifications for NEESgrid design. NEESgrid must be operational by September 30, 2004. During 2004, UIUC will transition operation of NEESgrid to the NEES Consortium for operation by the Consortium starting on October 1, 2004.